Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 76 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; Walking in the light in liberty; Psa 32:6-11.

Title: Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 76 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; Walking in the light in liberty; PSA 32:6-11.

 

Announcements / opening prayer:  

 

 

The carnal believer is in a state where only corrective measures from God may come rather than fellowship and gentle leading.

 

The theme of Psa 32 is the blessedness of forgiveness and its ability to lift the carnal believer out of the abyss of spiritual distress and into fellowship with God together with all the joy and fruit that that brings.

 

David wrote this Psalm after his recovery from the fearful anguish that was in his soul under the discipline of God for his adultery with Bathsheba and the plot for the murder of Uriah. His anguish he writes in Psa 51. Now delivered from it, he writes this psalm.

 

PSA 32:1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven [lifted and carried away], Whose sin is covered [expiated]!

 

PSA 32:2 How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!

 

PSA 32:3 When I kept silent about my sin [choosing the carnal way of self-justification, ignoring it], my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long.

 

PSA 32:4 For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah.

 

David's attempt to bury his sins in the dark recesses of his soul and justifying them or ignoring them only brought great anguish and pain upon his soul, which affected his body. This carnality also brought the discipline of God from the love of God. No one can live in the joys of true freedom while they harbor a heart full of scars, sins, evil, fear, worry, etc. Every believer must open these things into the light of God's grace and mercy and find in God's forgiveness and propitiation at Calvary, the healing of these things as well as the putting away of these things.

 

How absolutely silly it is to try and hide anything from God, no matter how horrible or embarrassing;

 

ROM 8:27 He who searches the hearts

 

Now, what if David simply offered the proper sacrifice for the sin offering? Would that have meant anything if his heart was not healed?

 

The offering needs to have the proper heart accompaniment where the confession heals the scars of anguish and the blood emphasizes verses one and two.

 

PSA 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

 

PSA 51:11 Do not cast me away from Thy presence,

And do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me.

 

PSA 51:12 Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation,

And sustain me with a willing spirit.

 

PSA 51:13 Then I will teach transgressors Thy ways,

And sinners will be converted to Thee.

 

PSA 51:14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,

Thou God of my salvation;

Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Thy righteousness.

 

PSA 51:15 O Lord, open my lips,

That my mouth may declare Thy praise.

 

PSA 51:16 For Thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;

Thou art not pleased with burnt offering.

 

PSA 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

A broken and a contrite heart [as opposed to a deceived heart], O God, Thou wilt not despise.

 

PSA 32:5 I acknowledged my sin to Thee, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord";And Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. Selah.

 

"guilt" - awon = iniquity. It is not the feelings of guilt but the iniquity itself. David repeats the words "transgression, iniquity, and sin" from vs. 1-2 in order to restate the blessedness of forgiveness.

 

This word is translated "iniquity" in verse 2.

 

The question arises as to the source of forgiveness being the blood of Christ or the confession, but that is not the right question to ask since forgiveness is only the result of the work of Christ. God has forgiven the transgression, iniquity, and sin of David through the future work of Christ, and that forgiveness is the source of all fellowship with Him. The cross makes fellowship possible and all the blessings that come with it. David's confession has no bearing on Calvary, but it has everything to do with his recovery from anguish to joy, from carnality to sanctification, from separation from God's plan to fellowship with God. God is immutable. It is us who change. Amazingly enough we can temporarily forget the cross by getting our eyes on hiding the sin rather than opening it up to God so that we may find grace and mercy to relieve its effects.

 

The confession applies God's forgiveness to David's heart from which he again finds peace and joy. It doesn't cause it.

 

"God's kiss of forgiveness sucks the poison from the wound," [Alexander Maclaren]

 

"The deepest search in life, it seemed to me, the thing that in one way or another was central to all living was man's search to find a father, not merely the father of his flesh, not merely the lost father of his youth, but the image of a strength and wisdom external to his need and superior to his hunger, to which the belief and power of his own life could be united." [Tom Wolfe]

 

God's forgiveness is always there because it is finished in Christ, but do we see it, or do we wallow in guilt and anguish in trying to hide it from him or justify it?

 

The contrast is in keeping silent about his sin and so not agreeing with God as to the sinfulness of what he had done, and then acknowledging it to God, no longer hiding it.

 

Think about it, what caused our fall was the sudden desire to be independent from God in order to know what God knew, or so we thought was possible. Our sin nature and therefore our sin (if we may personify them) desire to be independent from God, to hide from Him, as Adam and Eve had done. It wants independence and it wants it stubbornly.

 

JOH 3:20-21

"For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. "But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."

 

When our darkness is brought into the light and we are no longer ashamed but rather looking to our Father for His grace and mercy, which never changes, the death of our sin nature by Christ enacts that death in us experientially. We consider ourselves dead to the sin nature and alive to God in Christ Jesus. The wounded, scared, and hard heart is healed.

 

"Until you have given yourself to Him you will not have a real self." [CS Lewis]

 

The Lord quoted this passage in the synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning of His ministry.

 

ISA 61:1-2

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

Because the Lord has anointed me

To bring good news to the afflicted;

He has sent me to bind up [bandage] the brokenhearted,

To proclaim liberty to captives,

And freedom to prisoners;

To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord,

 

Bind up the brokenhearted means to fully heal what is broken within us. Why hide it from the only One who can actually heal it? Open it up to Him, admit to Him, because He can't fix it and make you an overcomer without you; not in time. In heaven, it's all gone, but in time, our choice to bring such things into the light is necessary for God to dress the wound and then, you will be free indeed. He has released you from the prison of sin and death and identified you with Him in life, and He wants to set you free in that life, walking in your calling, and walking in His victory. Look what happened to David when he attempted to hide his brokenness from God.

 

David was forgiven due to the future work of Christ and restored to fellowship because he was finally again in agreement with God.

 

Notice the change in David's focus.

 

PSA 32:6 Therefore, let everyone who is godly [he who abides in God] pray to Thee in a time when Thou may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not reach him.

 

It is obvious that God does not hide Himself at some times. God is surely found by any repentant heart. While David was trying to hide his sin, God was nowhere to be found, meaning in the way that David fellowshipped with God before this evil plan was hatched in his mind. Rather, David languished in pain and misery, but then, in turning to God and opening up his sin, iniquity, and transgression to God, he found forgiveness in the Lord and also found that no flood of great waters (adversity or judgment) could reach the godly. The blessedness of God's forgiveness through the One to come, revealed to David, likely more than ever, that God is not someone to hide from, but is the very hiding place for protection from all adversaries, even when he had fallen into great sin. The music here would have again reached a forte, or loud point.

 

PSA 32:7 Thou art my hiding place; Thou dost preserve me from trouble; Thou dost surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.